


Shine

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Claustrophobia, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Apocalypse, Pregnancy, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 12:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12817437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: Another pod joins Mark's.They're different from what Mark is used to....





	Shine

**Author's Note:**

> Edited by Angel!
> 
> This is more worldbuilding than anything else, but hopefully y'all will enjoy it!

Mark hadn't really expected to meet anyone interesting when his pod decided to travel to the spawning grounds with the other one.

They'd traveled together loads of times, every year when the moon got big and grinning - they swam to the strange waters by the old castle, where magic was still bleeding into the ground, and the water was warm enough to spawn and rest for a while.

When he was very young, he'd asked the head of his school why they didn't just stay there all the time.

"Too much magic," she had said, around bites of the fish that he'd brought her. "Too much magic in the water."

"We're born there," Mark had pointed out, and his whole body had been on edge, flukes quivering with the urge to swim away.

The head of the pod always unsettled him - she was old enough that her eyes had gotten milky, and she mainly got around by echolocation these days.

When he'd been presented as a spawn, when he finally had a face, she had stared at him with her milky eyes, and she had smiled, in that way that showed all of her needle teeth.

He'd pissed himself, and the whole pod had laughed.

They hadn't let him forget it, either.

But that had been a very long time ago, and now she swam slower, and he was less scared of her.

They swam, the head of the band at the head of their swimming, and they called to each other, and they sang.

They didn't sing as pretty as their cousins, the sirens, but they sang for each other, and one day, someone sang back.

Mark, who was at the rear of the pod, whipped around, looking.

The ones who were going to spawn were in the center of the band, to protect them from sharks.

And then there weren't sharks, but there was more singing, coming from a far off corner, behind a whole bunch of rocks.

Who was that?

They'd met up with other pods, to be sure, but usually not when going to the spawning grounds.

And then they'd just... showed up.

And now they were swimming together, as an equally little old woman talked to the head of Mark's pod.

And then everyone was talking to everyone else.

Except Mark.

Because Mark was awkward and uncomfortable meeting new people, especially weird new people.

And these new people... they were weird.

Really weird.

So colorful, for one thing!

Their accents were different from the ones that Mark was used to as well - they all talked like their mouths were full of something or other.

Mark wasn't the best at dealing with new people.

He didn't have enough experience with them.

But then this other mer just... swam right over to him.

The mer's hair was _green_ , a bright, striking green, like the kelp near the surface, when you were in a kelp forest.

His eyes were a startling light blue, and he looked right into Mark's eyes, and he smiled, his green-blue gill slits gently undulating in the water.

"Hello!"

"Hi," said Mark.

The other mer was swimming in time with him, keeping pace, which was impressive, considering the fact that Mark was that much stronger than most of his own pod.

"I've never seen you before," the green mer said. "I mean, I haven't met a lot of people, but still."

"No?"

"Oh, no," said the green mer. "I'm Jack!"

"Mark," said Mark. "So... your pod is spawning?"

"Yeah," said Jack. "I think everyone is, this year."

Mers didn't spawn every year - it would be too complicated, and it took so long for eggs to develop in the first place, let alone gestating.

Pods would lay their eggs, then come back a year later, when one or two of the eggs had hatched, and the spawn inside had survived, grown faces.

Sometimes they weren't exactly... from your pod, but hey, it all worked, more or less.

You laid eggs, you came back to babies.

A pod could only sustain so many babies, so it made sense.

And yeah, sometimes pods mingled together, although not that often. 

Which was why Mark was so awkward.

Jack was... bright.

He shimmered in the light, and he swam around Mark, full of some kind of nervous energy, fluking around Mark, his bright hair catching the light.

"What's it like where you're from?"

"It's a lot less bright," said Mark. "The water is also colder."

"What, really?" Jack looked genuinely surprised. "I'm not used to it being cold at all!"

"What's it like where you are?"

Jack was swimming on his back now, his tail going lazily.

His tail was a similar shade of green to his hair.

"It's warmer," he told Mark, "but it's less... there's less variety."

"Variety?"

"Yeah," said Jack. "You get really cold, or really warm, right?"

"Kinda, yeah," said Mark. "We kinda go from one end to the other."

"I wonder where we used to spawn," Jack said, his tone speculative. 

"Mmm?"

Jack was cute, if a little young looking.

And weird looking.

He was so brightly colored - Mark was more subdued, with streaks of grey and brown and black across his own tail, his hair dark and fanned around his head.

"Like... okay," said Jack, and now he was swimming next to Mark.

He was more streamlined, less bulky - he looked like he could be very fast, when he wanted to be.

"Okay?"

"The... mess with the magic, that was a long time ago, right?"

"Right."

There had been a war.

That much Mark knew, although everyone had been a bit... vague on the details.

But there had been magic - there had been a lot of magic, and more than the magic of things like fish speakers.

Real magic, terrifying magic. 

Mark had seen bits of it - there were places where people didn't go, or they went... strange.

They grew extra limbs, or lost the ones they had.

It was rumored that the head of the pod had lost her sight fighting some terrifying, old magic thing, but she'd gained the extra canny echolocation from it.

Other people said she was just old.

"But we spawn by it, because it does... something for us. The head of my pod, she knows the details, but it's all super complicated."

Mark nodded, although he wasn't really paying attention.

He remembered the spawning grounds, faintly.

They were warm, they were dark, and then there was some point where you gained a memory, and you could swim off to the point where you just _knew_ people would come, and then you got your name and became a person.

He hadn't given much thought to the place itself, but then again, he'd just grown a face.

He hadn't really been back to the spawning grounds since then, since he still wasn't interested in spawning.

"What kind of complicated?"

"Like... magic has something to do with our gestational abilities," said Jack, and he looked like he was concentrating as he said the last word. "Because it's all got to do with how much magic is in the water, because too much magic you get... you know." They both paused, no doubt thinking about the results of too much magic. "But we also need _some_ magic, or else the eggs don't change, they just kinda... sit there."

"Right," said Mark.

They were swimming together, a little apart from the rest of the group.

Mark's pod was weird in its own way - a lot of the bachelor males like himself had stayed with the rest of the pod, for one reason or another.

Mark and his brother had just... never seen a reason to leave, and the head of the pod hadn't chased him off.

He didn't have a mate either, but generally it was frowned upon to mate within your own pod, since there was a chance that the same folks who had made you had also made your mate.

Even for the mates who couldn't actually make children - it was just... not done.

He was pretty okay with things this way - he loved his mother, he loved the rest of the pod, he took care of the babies and the old people like everyone else.

"But there had to be a time before magic," Jack said, jolting Mark out of his reverie. 

"Mmm?"

Mark glanced sidelong at Jack, one eyebrow up.

"Because, like... there was a time before there was magic, right?"

"I don't think so," said Mark. "I mean, there must have been, but it was so far back that people were probably a lot different than they are now."

"There are people on the land," Jack said, his expression thoughtful. "And there had to be a time when there wasn't a sea."

"I don't think so," said Mark. "I think there was a time when there wasn't any land, and we just... lost some of the sea."

"Have you ever been on land?"

"What? No! How would I even get on land?"

They could breathe air, although it was a lot more difficult - you got less with each breath you took, and it could make you light headed, dizzy.

"There are places where the shallows are shallow enough that you can just... drag yourself on, you know?"

"Huh," said Mark, his expression thoughtful. "It's not like that where we usually are. Everything is very rocky."

"We've got beaches," said Jack. "I mean, they're _also_ rocky, but the rockiness of them isn't too much of an impediment."

"Huh," said Mark. "... what's it like on land?"

"Dry," said Jack, and that startled a laugh out of Mark.

"Well, of course it's dry," said Mark. "You're not under the water!"

"It's more than that," said Jack, his tone earnest. "It's... like, the dryness is almost... hostile." 

"How can the dryness be hostile?"

"Well," said Jack, "maybe it's just old magic. There's different kinds of old magic around there."

"Do you encounter a lot of old magic?"

"Not a lot, thankfully," said Jack. "Although we live pretty close to a spot where people used to drop stuff, so sometimes you trip over it when you're working on a garden, or something like that."

"Huh."

Mark looked thoughtfully up, where the sun was shining down on them, catching the light off of shiny things at the bottom, buried in the sand.

"What do your people do?"

"We don't really garden much," said Mark. "We're pretty close to a kelp forest. Why don't you guys come with us other years?"

"We don't usually spawn this early," said Jack, "but we've got a new camp, and we spawned late last time we went, so it was decided that we would go earlier this year."

"Oh," said Mark. "That makes sense."

"I don't really have a say in it, either way," said Jack, and he smiled, showing a quick flash of his needle sharp teeth. "I'm not exactly high up in the pod."

"Neither am I," said Mark, and indeed, the two of them were on the outskirts, as the spawning mothers swam slowly in the middle, encircled by the biggest and strongest.

Mark was on the edge of that honor guard, with Jack.

It was... something, seeing the contrasting colors - Mark's own pod, with its slightly subdued blacks, browns, and greys, mixed in with the flashy colors of Jack's pod - blues, greens, purples.

"We've been this way before," said Mark, as they passed a rusting metal something or other. "When I was very young, we used to explore in there."

"Yeah? Did you find anything interesting?"

"Not much," said Mark. "Rust and bones."

"Bones?"

"I don't know what they were the bones of," said Mark. "The head of the pod, she said that they looked like seal skulls."

"Did they?"

"I don't know," said Mark. "I've never seen a seal."

"What, really?"

"Really," said Mark.

He was blushing, his cheeks going warm.

"We have a bunch of them, at our beaches," said Jack. "They're friendly, although they'll steal fish if you're not careful, and there have been rumors that they'll take babies, if the babies are small enough."

"It's dolphins you gotta worry about, for that kind of thing," said Mark. 

"We've got them too, although they can be, you know, friendly," said Jack. "You just can't really trust them."

"We don't trust 'em at all," said Mark, and he scowled. 

"You seem especially... vehement about them," Jack said, in a slightly worried tone.

"Oh, no," said Mark, and he looked embarrassed, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, passing the tips of his fingers over his gill slits. 

The feeling always gave him the shivers.

"Do you not like them for a... particular reason?"

"I got into a bad fight with one of 'em when I was very small," said Mark, indicating a scar on his abdomen.

He wasn't expecting Jack to _reach out and touch it_ , oh god.

But there was a spark of... something or other, in the pit of Mark's stomach, when Jack did that, and Mark blushed harder.

"Mark," called one of the mothers, from inside the circle, "Mark, come here, and bring me a fish!"

"Right," said Mark, and he cleared his throat, swimming out of reach of Jack. "I'll, uh, I'll be right back. Sorry about that."

"It's all good," Jack said, and he was grinning back at Mark. "Happy hunting!" 

"You wanna come?"

... where had that come from?

Huh.

Jack was looking at him, his expression thoughtful.

Then he grinned.

"Sure!"

Mark indicated to the head of the pod that he was going, and then the two of them were swimming out, into the blue.

* * * 

They were quiet for a while - finding a school of fish, separating a few fish from the rest of the school, grabbing the fish in their hands, biting them.

They had fish in their hands, and there was a mess of blood and scales on both of them.

The glittering of Jack's scales mixed with the glittering of the other scales, and Mark tried not to stare too hard.

Jack caught Mark looking at him, though, and he smiled.

"You think this'll be enough?"

"Oh, definitely," said Mark, as they swam back towards the pod.

Jack was a fast swimmer, the way Mark had thought he would be, and the light from the surface played across his scales in a shimmering mix as he fluked through the water, outpacing Mark, then coming back to circle around him, and now he was talking at a mile a minute, grinning.

"It's so much darker here," he was telling Mark. "Back in our regular territory, it's so _bright_."

"Bright?"

"The water is shallower," said Jack. "It's one reason it's so much warmer there, as well."

"Do you miss it?"

"I'm going back," Jack said, his tone cheerful. "We don't usually use this route to get to the spawning grounds, but I've been there before."

"Oh. Right."

Mark blushed.

He was being kinda dumb.

He was always dumb around cute people.

... wait. 

Crap. 

Cute?

He was pensive, his expression thoughtful as they joined up with the pod, to give fish to the mothers of the pod.

* * * 

Night came, and people slept in shifts, the way they always did.

Because there were more adults, more people could sleep, but Mark still got put on first watch, since he didn't have any babies to mind or hunting to do.

He was more or less awake as he stood around the perimeter, his hands absently combing through his hair, the way he always did when he was bored and couldn't do much about it.

"Hello," said Jack, from right behind him, and Mark jumped.

"Shit, sorry," said Jack, and he made an apologetic face, coming to float next to Mark. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay," said Mark. "I'm just jumpy."

"Do you guys have sharks?" 

"Yeah," said Mark. "Not often, though."

"Have you ever been in the crushing dark?"

Mark glanced sidelong at Jack, his expression thoughtful. 

"Crushing dark?"

"Oh yeah," said Jack. "There's a... place, where if you stop, it's just... darkness. It's darkness and pressure, and it'll kill you if you're not careful."

"How does that work?"

"You ever had a really heavy rock fall on you?"

"... no," said Mark. 

"What, really?"

"Really really," said Mark. "What are you doing, that heavy rocks fall on you regularly?"

"Sometimes we go into caves," said Jack. 

"Yeah? The head of our pod doesn't like it when we do that. She's always afraid that we'll get trapped." 

"We live in caves, sometimes," said Jack.

"What really?"

Mark tried to imagine what it would be like to sleep without being able to look up and see the waves above his head.

... that was a scary though, and it made his skin feel too tight all of a sudden.

His gills struggled to work, and he gave a full body shudder.

"You okay, man?"

"Yeah," said Mark, and he smiled, self conscious. "I'm not good with tight spaces."

"No?"

"No," said Mark. "I'm used to... you know, all of this."

He indicated the water around them - they were near the bottom of the ocean, and Jack and Mark were guarding along the top, in case anything came at them from the open water.

There were other guards around the ground.

They were close enough to the shore that there was some coral - they'd stayed here before, and it was a nice, safe space.

"I'm not sure," said Jack, and it was his turn to look sheepish.

He rubbed the back of his head, and he was still looking self conscious.

"Hmm?"

"I'm not used to there being so much... open, you know?"

"I think so," said Mark. "But we're going to be going through the kelp forest in a few days, if that'll help you?"

"We've never gone through the kelp forest," Jack admitted. "Since we didn't want to bump into anyone who didn't want to be bumped into."

"Fair enough," said Mark.

Mers were generally pretty friendly when they met each other, but there was a decent amount of "you stay on your side, I'll stay on my side, and all shall be well."

Except when traveling to the spawning ground, because everyone knew that the babies that came out of the spawning ground weren't actually the ones from the eggs you laid.

But when you arrived at the spawning ground and there were new babies, you took them with you, regardless as to who had actually made them, because it took so long for the eggs to become babies, and you didn't want to leave them alone.

And pods did change members - people took mates from other pods, or sometimes, people even struck out to make their own pods.

It was the way things were done, and Mark knew it well enough not to think too deeply as to how it worked.

Although his pod was a bit unusual - they kept their unmated men around much longer than most other pods did.

"I keep expecting there to be something coming at me from the horizon," Jack admitting. "Because it's all so... big."

"Well, the ocean is pretty big," said Mark, and he grinned. "It's how we all live here."

"In a weird way, it reminds me of the crushing dark," said Jack, and his expression was thoughtful.

"Does it?"

"Yeah," said Jack, and he swam closer to Mark, so that they were shoulder to shoulder, one of his arms coming out to wrap around Mark's middle. "Because there's just so... much of it. The crushing dark is like that."

"I thought you said you couldn't go down there," said Mark. 

His skin was warm where Jack was touching him. 

"You can go down to a certain point," said Jack, "but you have to be very careful, and when you start to see spots in your vision, you have to come back. But you can't even go up as fast as you want to, or you can die."

"Surfacing too quickly causes you to die?"

That was unexpected.

"The blood can explode out of your nose," Jack said, and he sounded... downright cheerful as he said it.

Mark made a face.

"Thanks for that mental image," he said, his tone flat.

"Any time," Jack said cheerful, and he rubbed his chin against Mark's cheek.

Jack's chin was bristly - he wasn’t growing much in the way of facial hair.

Mark thought about shoving Jack away from him... and then wrapped his arms around Jack, squeezing him.

The water was cold and Jack was warm, and his voice sounded interesting enough and different enough that Mark wanted to keep listening to it. 

Mark yawned, and his eyes were getting droopy.

It would be his turn to sleep soon.

Jack was nodding against him, clearly equally tired.

"You don't have to keep watch with me," Mark told Jack.

"I know," said Jack, "but you're comfortable. I wanna keep company with you."

Mark raised an eyebrow, amused in spite of himself.

"You want to stay here staring up at the open water, which you explicitly said unsettles you?"

"... it's better than lying on the sand and staring up at the open water," said Jack.

"Fair enough," said Mark, because he could imagine that being unsettling.

He tried to imagine himself in some kind of tight, enclosed space, as he tried to sleep, and he shivered again.

He'd given himself the heebie jeebies.

"Can I ask a question?"

Jack sounded shy, and his voice was ticklish against Mark's chest, the bubbles from his speaking passing over Mark's face.

"Sure," said Mark, as more bubbles went by. 

He scanned the horizon for anything, and saw nothing.

"If you're bad with tight spaces, how were you with the spawning grounds? Since they're so... you know tight."

"I was okay with them then," said Mark. "I think... well, I've never spawned, you know?" 

He was blushing now. 

"No?"

"Haven't felt the need to," Mark admitted. 

"Huh," said Jack.

"The last time I was in the spawning grounds, I _was_ basically a spawn," he said, and he was grinning a bit. "So it didn't feel like such a tight fit. Now, since I'm the size I am... who even knows?"

"I've never spawned either," Jack admitted. 

"Do you want to?"

"Oh, definitely some day," said Jack. "I love babies. Just... not yet."

Mark nodded.

"Do you want to?" Jack was blushing.

"Yeah," said Mark. "Although probably not this trip. Maybe the next trip."

"Right," said Jack.

Another mer came up, tapping Mark on the hip.

"You can go sleep now," he told Mark. 

"Great," said Mark, and he yawned. 

He swam down to the bottom, where people were curled up in groups, and he curled up himself, his gills moving to keep the water moving.

And Jack was... lying next to him?

Jack slept flat on his back, his tail twitching slightly, and one of his hand was resting on Mark's side.

It was... odd, but then again, so was everything else about Jack.

Mark kept his eyes on the bright flickers of Jack's tail, until his own eyes closed, and he was sleeping.

* * * 

_He dreamed of being young, new enough to not know what his own face looked like, swimming through the great expanse of the spawning grounds - through the great metal hulks, under the bridges, over the strange plants that only grew there. He was looking for something._

_He was chasing trails of light, the way he had when he was small, and the light reflected on the surface had made him laugh and smile._

_There were flashes of green now, and he was chasing them, chasing them into tighter and tighter spaces, until he was inside a space so small that it was touching him on all sides, and the bright flashes were leading him towards something that was an even tighter squeeze._

_Did he chase after it, or did he ignore it, and go back to the rest of the ocean, where he could see on all sides, where he wasn't being squeezed like a squid in a hole?_

_In real life, he would have turned around - in the dream, he kept going, squeezing himself forward, as his scales were scraped and jagged metal pressed against his sides._

_The green flashes were just out of sight, just on the very edge of it, and he kept chasing it, his hands outstretched._

_It was dark - as dark as Mark had imagined the crushing dark, when Jack had described it._

_But he kept going, until he was... he was...._

He was awake.

Mark's eyes blinked, taking in the pod sleeping around him, taking in the brightness of the other pod, and his own pod's dark coloring, as people swam around, talking to each other, sharing food.

Someone had found an old kelp garden that had been abandoned who knew how long ago, and they shared the kelp around each other, the mothers of course getting the biggest portion.

Jack was around, tickling one of the youngsters, then going off to talk to someone else, flicking this way and that.

He was such a social animal - it was a bit of a surprise, although then again, the other pod seemed to be more social in general.

Also so very beautiful.

That was the part that Mark was having trouble wrapping his head around.

The bright colors, the openness of their faces.

Not that his own pod was closed off or anything - rather, it was just... it was so different.

"You okay in there?"

Jack swam in front of him, and Mark jerked out of his daze.

"Mmm?"

"You were staring out into space," said Jack. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm good," said Mark. "Sorry."

He caught sight of the flashes of green on Jack's tail, and for some reason he was blushing.

The dream was already fading.

"We're gonna be going through the kelp forest today," said Jack. "The head of the pod said so."

"Ooh," said Mark, and he grinned. "I think you'll blend in a little better there."

Jack shot a rueful look down at his flashing, sparkling tail.

"I do kinda stand out around here, don't I?"

"Just a little bit," Mark said, but he tried to keep his tone kind.

Jack flashed a grin at him.

"Wait until you come to _our_ territory," he told Mark. "You'll stand out like a rock among the coral!"

Mark was blushing harder, although damned if he knew why.

"We're also going to be by the den of the old monsters," he told Jack.

"Yeah? I've heard of those. What are they like?"

"... wrong," Mark said, "but they're right at the edge of the kelp forest, so you have to pass them in order to get through. If you leave them something pretty, they'll usually ignore you."

"Pretty?"

"Shiny," said Mark, "or brightly colored, since bright colors aren't really a... thing around here."

"Huh," said Jack. "Well... I happen to be very good at finding shiny things!"

"You're already so shiny," Mark said without thinking. "Maybe that's why. They're drawn to how pretty you are."

... wow.

That might have been the dumbest thing he ever said.

"I think the head of the pod is calling me," Mark said, before he had a chance to say anything else, because... wow, but that was awkward.

He swam over to the front of the group, before he had a chance to open his mouth and say anything else.

* * * 

He was still rolling his eyes at how dumb he had sounded when they stopped at the edges of the den of the old monsters.

"The newcomers are going to attract too much attention," said the head of the pod, her blind eyes peering out at them all, one at a time. 

"We can't abandon them," Mark burst out.

"I wasn't going to suggest we do," the head of the pod said, and she smiled at him with her sharp, sharp teeth.

Mark tried not to get too nervous, although the grouper he'd eaten for breakfast twisted in his gut.

"They swim in the center. The monsters don't have very good eyesight - they just catch shine. If we leave a big pile of shine for them, they'll be distracted."

Mark nodded.

"Now," said the head of the pod, "have you all brought shine?"

And they had.

Mother of pearl shells, old bits of the cloudy smooth stuff, untarnished metal.

"The warm water pod will stay at the back," said the head of the pod. "The young unmated ones will go forward to drop the shine for the monsters."

Mark caught sight of Jack, who was hanging back.

He was holding something especially bright - a ball covered in bright, reflective surfaces.

And he was... swimming towards Mark, oh god.

There was nowhere for Mark to swim off to, and save face.

Okay.

So he stayed in place, and he smiled at Jack in spite of himself, because the light drifting down from the surface was reflecting off of the shiny ball in his hands, and Mark wanted to trace it with his fingers.

When he had been very young, he had tried to catch light in his hands.

It had never worked, of course - light wasn't a thing that you could really touch.

But he was struck with this same urge.

Or maybe he just wanted to touch Jack, although the idea was a bit terrifying.

"What are the old monsters, anyway?" Jack floated next to Mark, turning the shiny ball around and around in his hands. "You said they were wrong, but I didn't entirely get that."

"They're...." Mark stared up at the surface, trying to get his thoughts in order, because it was a hard thing to describe, if you hadn't seen it in person. "You know how you have the old dead metal, and you have things that are alive?"

Jack nodded.

"Well, they're... both, at the same time. Only the metal isn't dead, and it's... it's alive." 

It was wrong, on a fundamental level.

Things that were metal weren't alive.

But Mark had seen one of the monsters tear its side open on an old broken piece of metal, and it had screamed like metal on metal.

But the thing’s oily black blood had gushed out into the water, and it had fouled the whole area for several years.

"They're not made of meat like you and I," Mark said. "Or if they are, then the meat bits of it has gone rotten."

"I didn't know that metal _could_ be alive."

"It shouldn't be," said Mark. "It's just... it shouldn't."

"But they like the shine?"

"Yeah," said Mark. "I don't know why."

"Maybe... well, you said they're made of metal," Jack said, his voice slow and thoughtful. "Maybe... they like the metal. Maybe it reminds them of when they were shiny."

"You think they were once shiny?"

"I've never seen them before, so I dunno," said Jack. "But I know that all metal was shiny once."

"You think so?"

"I _know_ so," said Jack, his tone confident.

And then they were at the mouth of the den.

Some of the shine that the mers had left was still there, although most of it had been taken back into the thing's lair.

"I want to bring it up," Jack said. 

"You'll get eaten," Mark said.

"You can come with me," said Jack. 

As if Mark wanted to swim up to the mouth of the den, with his paltry shell, and set it down.

The monster's great red eyes would be staring at them.

Sometimes the shine caught in the center of them, and it was... it was wrong, somehow.

There was something cold and calculating about it.

But no, Jack was swimming down with the rest of the pod, and Mark hurried after him, because what else was he supposed to do?

Jack set the shiny ball at the very edge of the huge metal mouth, and he stared into it.

The great, sweeping red eyes stared out at them, but didn't do anything.

Jack's tail was flashing enough that it caught in the red eyes.

Mark's heart was in his throat as he set the shine on the edge of the lip, and then he was swimming away.

At some point, they had grabbed hold of Jack's hand, and was clinging to it the way he'd clung to adult's when he was very small.

His heart was in his throat.

* * *

They swam away from the den - the huge, hulking metal fading out into the landscape, as they began to swim through the great kelp forest.

They were much closer to the surface now, and it was bright enough that it hurt Mark's eyes a little bit.

He hadn't let go of Jack's hand.

It was safer here, than in the open ocean, and the old monsters never came out this way.

So everyone was allowed to swim a bit more freely.

"Let's swim," said Jack, and he squeezed Mark's hand.

"Right," said Mark, and he was light headed, but smiling.

Why was he so light headed?

* * *

The two young bachelors wove in and out of the great stretches of kelp, startling a sea lion, following a school of fish, coming back briefly to the group to give fish to the mothers, the coming back to their own explorations.

"What kind of fish do they have where you're from?"

"Bright ones," said Jack.

They were in sight of the pod, but not in the tightly knit circle they had been in before.

"Bright?"

"More colors," Jack supplied. "A lot more... blue, green, purple...."

"Most of the fish around here are just fish colored," Mark said, his tone wistful. "I wish I could see those fish."

"Come with me," Jack said. "You could travel with us for a bit, before you find a mate."

There was a blush at the word "mate", and Mark shot Jack a sidelong look.

People usually joined their mate's pod, in one way or another.

Hmm....

"Maybe," said Mark. "It might be interesting."

"Yeah," said Jack. "Interesting."

They swam together in silence, as Mark searched for something to say.

"Are they the same on the inside?"

"Hm?"

"On the inside. Are the fish the same on the inside? Because, you know, most things are the same on the inside. Apart from things with old magic."

"I've seen the inside of a different kind of monster," said Jack. "Although it was different from that monster."

"Was it?"

"Oh yes," said Jack. "It was... it was a thing that was made of metal, but it was empty on the inside."

"How do you know that it was a monster, then, and not just something made of metal?"

"Even though it was empty inside, it still moved."

Jack shuddered so hard that his hair shook in the water. "It was... it was a thing that wasn't real, in a weird way."

"Not real?"

"Like... things like that don't exist. It didn't even have fins, and the head had no eyes, just this giant gaping hole."

"That does sound pretty terrifying," Mark admitted.

* * * 

They talked about monsters.

They talked about monsters, and they talked about shine, and about the strange remains of old, dead magic.

Jack's pod was bigger than this, it turned out - he'd come along for the spawning grounds because he was bored with where he was, and wanted to see more of the ocean.

His people apparently stayed in one place, for the most part, which was something.

"We farm a lot," said Jack. "We grow gardens. We keep fish sometimes."

"How do you keep fish?"

"You protect the place where they make their babies, mainly," said Jack. "And you feed them. If you protect the babies well enough, there are a lot of extra fish, and then... well, extra fish is good."

"Huh," said Mark, trying to wrap his head around that.

His people mainly hunted.

They did keep gardens, to a certain extent - they grew kelp, or sea grass, or other green things, since eating too much fish and not enough green made your teeth start to fall out.

But the idea of gardening with fish... that was novel.

"But I like all of the traveling that your pod does," Jack said, as they wove through the great ropes of kelp, stretching up towards the surface. "I've barely seen anything."

"It's alright," said Mark. "I don't really know any other way."

"Do you explore much?"

"Not really," Mark admitted. "They usually have me on watch duty, since I'm big. And when we've got babies or little ones, I'm put on baby minding duty."

"I do like babies," Jack admitted. "Do you do a different route, to get to the spawning grounds each year?"

"No," said Mark. "We tend to camp near it, when it's time for spawning."

"We did a different route this year," said Jack. "I'm glad for the excitement of it, don't get me wrong, it's just...." He looked slightly embarrassed. "I didn't realize how unsettling new scenery could be."

"But don't you sleep in caves?"

"Oh, yes," said Jack. "Sometimes. We travel within the same range. So I guess we don't _entirely_ stay in one place. But it feels like it, every time I see some new thing around here, and you brush it off as just something that you see all the time."

Jack looked sheepish.

"If it helps," said Mark, "I'd probably be pretty amazed by all of your different colored fish, let alone the idea of gardening fish."

"I suppose you're right," said Jack, his expression thoughtful. "You've got so much metal as well."

"We don't have it," Mark said. "It belongs to the sea."

"Well, yes, of course it belongs to the sea," said Jack, in a tone that bordered on dismissive, "but I mean... we don't have a lot of it around. We're nothing but coral and anemones as far as the eye can see." 

"That sounds nice," said Mark.

He wanted to reach out for Jack's hand.

But that would be strange.

But he still wanted it, so badly that he was clenching his hand into a fist, so that he wouldn't reach out.

Jack's hands were smaller than his, narrower, with long, tapering fingers.

He had a thin dusting of hair across his upper body as well, before his flukes started.

There was hair on his face as well, more of it than on Mark's.

Mark scraped the hair off of his face when he had a chance - it was itchy, and the head of the pod said he looked like a sea lion when he had too much of it.

The hair suited Jack, though.

"Mark?" 

Jack was waving his hand in front of Mark's face.

"Right, sorry," said Mark. "What were we talking about?"

Jack gave him an affectionate look.

"We were talking about metal," said Jack.

"Oh. Right." Mark cleared his throat, as they circumnavigated the pod a few times.

"Metal... metal makes the water taste fine," said Mark, finally, after a few minutes. "It sheds this... stuff."

"Some of the mothers say they want to eat it, when they're really stuffed full of roe," said Jack.

"That's... well, I mean, it's not for eating," said Mark. "But there's stuff in it that might taste good, I guess...?"

Mothers were always a bit odd.

Jack shrugged himself.

"I don't know," he said. "They just like it when I keep them company." He was blushing now. "Some of them were saying that maybe I should try spawning this year. To... you know, contribute."

Mark raised an eyebrow.

"Are you going to?"

"I don't know," Jack said, and he was looking embarrassed, as the band swam deeper, beginning to get away from the kelp forest, going towards where it was deeper, darker.

Mark reached out impulsively, and he took Jack's hand in his, at long last.

Their fingers folded together elegantly, and the hair on the back of Jack's knuckles was almost... ticklish. 

Mark ran the pad of his thumb over it, and found it soft.

Jack made a startled noise, and Mark made to draw his hand back, but Jack squeezed it, still holding them. 

"I've... I've always been afraid of spawning," Mark said, thankful that they were out of earshot of the rest of the pod. "Because... because the spawning grounds, where the eggs are, it's such a tight space, and I've always been afraid of going inside of it."

He'd never told anyone that.

He was Mark - big, tough Mark, and people admired him, and okay, the head of the pod had been getting downright pushy about it as of late, but what was he going to do?

"I'm afraid of sea urchins," Jack said, unexpectedly.

"... what?"

They were still holding hands.

"Sea urchins. The little guys with all the spines."

"Why are you afraid of them? They're barely alive."

Well, no, that wasn't exactly fair to the sea urchins.

They were alive.

But they were alive the same way that oysters or clams were alive.

On a technicality.

"Because... okay, so you're gonna laugh at this," said Jack, and he let go of Mark's hand, much to Mark's disappointment.

He was swimming around and around Mark, clearly full of nervous energy.

They were still in sight of the pod, so it wasn't like they were in any danger.

Any kind of monster or predator knew to leave a group of mers this big alone - mers were known to use rocks, or pointy shells.

A lone mer would be picked off by a monster or a shark; a baby might get eaten by an eel or a dolphin.

But a whole pod of them?

No, they were safe.

"Why am I gonna laugh at this?"

Mark and Jack were swimming closer to the pod now, as they went still deeper, and it got darker.

Jack's tail was getting less flashy, as the light faded.

"Because I was very young and very stupid," said Jack.

"We all do stupid stuff when we're very young," said Mark.

They were swimming closer together now - the head of the pod had her special necklace on, the one with the tooth of the creature that had (possibly) taken her sight.

It glowed, giving them light as they swam under the great, hulking behemoths that had sunk their long, metal legs into the deep, deep water.

The bottom of the sea was a very long way away.

Mark was uneasy - the great metal things were blocking out the sun, or the moon - he didn't know if it was day or night.

Jack's fins, or his fluke, would press against Mark's occasionally.

That helped.

The water was very cold, and Jack was warm.

Mark pressed closer to him, until they were shoulder to shoulder, and Jack's hand was clinging to his arm, to keep his balance.

"Well, when I was very young, I liked bright, shiny things," said Jack. "And I also liked bones."

"... bones," said Mark, looking sidelong at Jack, one eyebrow up.

"I was a weird child," said Jack. "So there I am, small enough that I'm getting used to having a face and being part of a pod, and we keep our babies in, like...." He made a thoughtful face. "Like a cave, only without a top, and we use rocks."

"... what?"

"We make, like, a... square? A square out of rocks, and we keep the babies and the little ones in there, when we work the gardens, since gardens or fish gardens is pretty boring when you're still too small to sit still for more than a minute or so."

"Right."

"So I saw these great big bones - I think they were whale bones, actually, actually."

"You said that you lived in the shallow, warm water," said Mark. "How would a whale bones get _there_?"

"That I have no idea. I was still small, barely a year out of the spawning ground," said Jack.

There were... things swimming under them.

They were very big, and very quiet.

No, big was the wrong way to describe it.

Whales were big, but whales were still alive.

These things were... alive, in a sense.

Something great and alien powered them, although Mark had not the slightest clue as to what it might be.

They had great red eyes that would sweep across the pod occasionally, but they utterly ignored them.

The great, deep things lived here. 

They were made of the same stuff as the monsters that wanted shine, but they utterly ignored any kind of mer or any other creature that went by.

What they could be doing... who even knew.

Jack was staring down at them, his eyes wide, and his hand was in Mark's, squeezing it very tightly.

"You were telling me about the whale bones?"

"Right," said Jack, and he cleared his throat. "The whale bones. I found a great whale bone - I think it was a tooth, honestly. And it was covered in sea urchins. And I thought they were just funny looking sea anemones, and anemones are just kind of... ticklish, you know?"

"Right," said Mark, who had no idea.

"So I dove in head first."

"... oh no," said Mark.

"Yep," said Jack. "One of the bachelors heard me, and he fished me out, and then it took him who even knew how long to pick all of the sea urchins off of me. All of me." He gave an exaggerated shudder, and possibly some of it was actually related to the memory of the sea urchins, and not his fear of the things below.

They didn't talk about the things below.

At least, not in the great beast's hearing.

"And since then you've been afraid of sea urchins?"

"Basically," said Jack.

"I used to be afraid of whales," said Mark. 

"Used to be?"

"Like I said," Mark said, "I had an unfortunate run in with dolphins when I was very small."

"What happened?"

"Well, you know what dolphins are like," said Mark, and he made a face.

"Yeah," said Jack, and he made a sympathetic face, patting Mark on the shoulder.

"So... I'd swam away, when we were camping near their territory, and one of them grabbed me, and then they were flipping me through the water, tossing me through the air...."

"That sounds pretty unpleasant," Jack said.

"One of them bit me here," said Mark. "Not just, like, to hold me in place, but actually _bit_ me."

"I'm sorry," said Jack. "That sounds horrible."

"Well, the first whales I met were the great big black and white ones, the ones that look like dolphins."

"I've never seen one of those before," said Jack.

"They're _terrifying_ ," said Mark, his face pale. "Their mouths are full of very sharp teeth."

"I believe you."

"So then I saw an actual whale, I already had the association, and so I hid behind the mothers, even though I was almost old enough to start hunting on my own," said Mark.

"So how did you get over the fear?"

"I ended up tripping over them, years later, when they performed the Song."

"The Song?"

"A very long time ago," Mark said, "the whales made a deal with Death itself, about something or other, and... well, things went sideways, but they didn't go as sideways as they could, or something. It wasn't _just_ death."

"Huh," said Jack, his expression thoughtful. "So we die because of the whales?"

"Well, no," said Mark. "I think maybe whales die because of whales. Or maybe we die the way we die, but it could have been worse."

Jack's expression was skeptical. 

"I suppose."

"At any rate," said Mark, "I ended up running into some of them, as they sang, and it was a song about... about...."

Mark tried to put it into words.

In a way, the singing had reminded him of the boniness of Jack's hand in his own, and the hot blood pumping in Jack's veins.

In the coldness of the sea, the warmth of the earth's own blood under the great sheets of land.

And it was about spawning, about making babies, about old people, about being small and stupid, about being old and tired.

It was about being alive, and knowing you were going to die.

"It was about life," Mark said, aware of how silly that sounded, but not sure of how else to put it.

But Jack was nodding again.

"Fair enough," he said. "And I guess there are worse things than death...."

Their eyes both settled on the great, monstrous hulks that paced beneath them, silent as bones.

"You're right," Mark said, and he held on tighter to Jack's hand, until it was probably uncomfortable.

He didn't let go, until they returned to the shallower water, and the great beasts were out of sight.

* * * 

"We're going to sleep in the open water today," said the leader of the pod.

Now that they were in the light again, Jack's tail kept flashing and sparkling.

Mark wanted to touch it.

He satisfied himself with tucking a piece of Jack's hair back.

Jack smiled at him, a little confused, but clearly pleased.

"Will you sleep by me?"

When mers slept in the open water, they had to hold on to someone, or something, to keep from floating off too far.

"Certainly," said Mark.

And then they were hunting, bringing fish back for the pod.

Jack found a crab, and he cracked it open, offering the sweet, white meat to Mark.

Instead of taking it into his own hand, Mark plucked it out with his mouth, and he nibbled it, as Jack stuttered and blushed.

... how did you go about asking someone to be your mate?

Especially if they were from a pod with different practices than yours, which this one clearly had.

Mark... was beginning to think he'd like that.

It wasn't as if it was unheard of for two males to mate.

The whole pod raised babies, and the whole pod made babies, so it wasn't like they pair bonded, the way the whales or the dolphins did.

So where did it leave the two of them?

Mark's mind was still buzzing as he linked his arm through Jack's, letting his body relax into the water, gently rocked by the motion of the waves overhead. 

* * *

The traveling for the next few days was pretty samey.

Mark and Jack swam close together, talking constantly.

Mark kept catching the looks that the head of the pod was shooting him, but didn't know how to read them.

They were heading towards the spawning grounds, and that was all that mattered, right?

* * *

"Do you ever wonder how the spawn becomes babies?"

Jack's tone was thoughtful, as the two of them swam near the bottom of the pod, watching out for anything that would try to attack them from the sand.

The only real worry was an especially big octopus, but, well... you never knew.

There were a few monsters that lurked beneath the sand, although most of them were too small to do much to a mer.

Unless they ganged up, which they did once and a while, for no discernible reason. 

So Jack and Mark swam, and they talked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've seen spawn, right?"

"Yes," said Mark. "Obviously."

They were clear eggs, with something or other inside of them - the shape was changing constantly - he remembered them from his own time, from before he grew a face.

They were different from any other fish eggs - they were much bigger, for one, and the inside was always... flickering, like someone blinking their eyes very quickly.

Mark didn't really understand it - that had been a very long time ago.

"But what about... after it's an egg, but before it grows a face?"

"I... don't know that bit," Mark said slowly. "There's either spawn, or else there's babies. I don't know if there's an in between phase."

"There has to be," Jack said.

"Why?"

"Because things don't just... become other things without becoming something else first."

"Are you sure?"

"Like, okay...."

Jack was swimming on his back now, looking up at Mark.

The very edge of his tail would occasionally hit the sand, stirring it up in great clouds.

"Okay?"

"Have you ever seen a cuttlefish?"

Mark nodded.

They were a pain to hunt for, but they were delicious, and the cuttle bone was a handy tool.

"So a cuttlefish can change their color to make themselves look like something else, right?"

"Right."

"But there's a point where they're not one thing and not another - their color can't change instantly."

Jack snapped his fingers.

Mark nodded.

He was slowly starting to get what Jack was getting at.

"So how do we go from being eggs in the middle of the spawning ground to being babies with faces?"

"... I'm not sure," said Mark. "All I can really remember is being someone who had a face. Not the point before it."

"It's all pretty damn confusing," Jack said. 

"I think... I think maybe it has something to do with magic," Mark said.

Jack looked at him, clearly unsettled.

"What, you think we're made with magic?"

"Well, maybe not... made," said Mark. "But you know how some fish have to have magic in their life cycle, to keep them from exploding?"

"... no, Mark," said Jack, his voice completely flat. "No, I _don't_ know about that at all."

"Oh," said Mark. "Well, there are some fish that need to eat magic, or else they explode."

"... why?"

"Well," said Mark, "the head of the pod thinks it’s because they've already got so much magic in them, and if they don't... stabilize it or something, then you end up with too much unstable magic, which results in...."

"An explosion," said Jack, nodding. "I've never really see something really explode."

"You ever seen sharks go after a school of fish?"

Sharks and mers more or less left each other alone.

Mers would hunt sharks occasionally, but for the most part... well, it was easier to just leave them alone. 

But sometimes, you almost swam face first into a feeding frenzy, on no fault of your own, at which point you just sat back and watched, waiting for the sharks to calm down or start eating each other.

And that... well, it was similar to a magic fish.

Only on a much... grander scale.

"We get small sharks," said Jack. "Like... about this big."

He held his arms apart, indicating a length about the size of his forearm.

"Really?"

"Oh yes," said Jack. "Although I've also seen the very big ones that don't really... eat much."

"How big is big?"

"Like... as big as one of the metal things," said Jack.

"Metal things?"

"The metal things with the round legs, and the broken eyes."

"Oh."

"The really big ones," Jack added.

Mark nodded.

"They sound dangerous," he said.

He was holding Jack's hand.

When had that happened?

Jack's green hair was catching the light from the surface, glinting like the shine of the ball that he had held in his hands, when they had passed the den of the great beasts.

But the mothers were swimming slowly along in front and over them, and the rest of the pod was swimming as well, talking, laughing, arguing. 

It was a pod being a pod, the way pods are.

Already there were a few pairings, between the darker colors of Mark's pod, and the flashiness of Jack's pod.

There would be some _strange_ looking babies at the end of this, no doubt about it.

Mark glanced sidelong at Jack, biting his lip in thought.

What did he want to do?

Did he want to ask Jack to stay with him?

Did he want to go stay with Jack's pod for a while?

But sleeping in caves, not being able to see the sea....

But also, seeing fish gardens....

"Mark?"

Jack squeezed his hand.

"Mmm?"

"You okay in there?"

"What? Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He smiled at Jack crookedly, as Jack swam around him in an excited circle.

"I was thinking," Jack said, and his voice was almost... too casual. "I was thinking that maybe... maybe, if you wanted to come to stay with my pod for a while."

Mark glanced sidelong at him again, his eyebrow going up.

Sometimes, Jack was a bit too canny about figuring out what Mark was thinking.

Maybe he had some excess magic inside of him, giving him some kind of complicated abilities.

There were some people like that - there was a woman who could communicate with birds, a man who could make people do what he wanted, as long as he sang to them, someone else who never got lost, no matter what you did or where you put them.

"Wouldn't it be strange, having someone like me in your home territory?"

"I don't think so," said Jack. "And you did say you wanted to see it."

"Could we see the crushing dark as well?"

There was a knot of something or other in his stomach, although he wasn't sure why.

Would the head of the pod let him do that in the first place?

... maybe.

He'd have to ask her.

She _had_ been hinting that it was getting time for him to find a mate at some point. 

Although how would she feel losing a hunter?

Mark sighed.

Was he doing this too quickly?

He usually thought stuff over a bit before he did it, although he also enjoyed doing most of his stuff by the metaphorical skin of his teeth.

"Sure," said Jack. "Although we can't go down that far."

"Of course," said Mark.

And then he stopped, because they were here.

They were at the spawning grounds. 

When had that happened?

The trip couldn't be over already, could it?

The mothers sighed with relief, and they were settling down in front of the great, rusted metal hulk that was the place where the eggs were laid.

They wouldn't lay them just yet - they needed to eat, and the moon needed to be full.

But it was so tempting, to swim inside, to see if there were any babies waiting for them.

Sometimes there weren't. 

Sometimes it was just the remains of last year's spawn, maybe the remnants of something or other that came out when they had hatched.

And Jack and Mark were now more or less given a free reign, to do as they pleased.

They were safe in the spawning grounds - there was some old magic here, and it did things to things that weren't small fish, or mers.

* * *

"I want to show you something," said Jack, after they'd gone hunting and fed everyone.

"What is it?"

"There's a cave nearby," said Jack. "It's got so much shine in it. I don't... I don't know what it is, exactly, but I came in here by accident last year, and I've wanted to show it to someone special since then."

"And I'm that someone special?"

"Oh, definitely," said Jack, and he smiled a smile so sweet that Mark's heart opened up like an anemone.

"Okay," said Mark, and he took Jack's hand.

* * * 

They swam a ways through the rusting, hulking metal, as it loomed over them like the promise of a whale.

When they reached one of the big monsters with the broken eyes and the round legs, Jack paused.

"We have to open it," he told Mark, and he grabbed one of the... legs? Arms? 

Whatever it was, he pulled it open. 

And there it was.

There was shine.

There was strange, heavy shine, and it was beautiful.

It glinted, giving off a yellow glow, and there were strange symbols stamped into it.

Mark swam closer, just on the edge of the monster's body.

"Go in," said Jack. "I promise. There's more shine on the other end."

Indeed, the monster was sticking out of a great metal cave, its blind eyes knocked out.

"... okay," said Mark, although in truth, the terror was beginning to climb up the back of his throat.

Oh god.

But he shuddered, his gills working, and he swam forward.

* * *

He held a piece of shine in his hands - it was heavy, heavier than most metal.

It was soft, for metal, and it was colder than the water.

When they swam out of the monster's eyes, they were in... a cave.

A cave full of rotting something or other.

And it was full of shine.

Sparkly shine, metallic shine, all gathered in a heap on the sand.

"What is this place?"

There were markings on the wall, although Mark had no idea what any of it meant - if it even _could_ mean anything.

"I don't know," Jack said, his voice quiet. "But... but it has shine."

Mark looked over at Jack, at the way the light caught his tail, at the way the other shiny things in the room bounced off of it.

"You've got more shine," Mark blurted out, aware of how ridiculous he sounded, not entirely sure how to turn that off.

"What?"

"In you. You've... you're the most shine I've ever seen. Known."

Jack grinned, his expression fond.

"Oh yeah?"

Mark squeezed Jack's hand, and, even though he couldn't see the horizon or the water, he was at peace.

Was he going to go into the spawning grounds tomorrow?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But... no matter what he was going to do....

He was going to do it with Jack.

**Author's Note:**

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